


You see my red as blue

by Veraverorum (your_Mother)



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Creatures & Monsters, Blood and Violence, Faked Death, Friends to Enemies to Lovers, Gabriel & Olivia friendship, M/M, Past Character Death, Past Relationship(s), if you squint there's background SombraWidowmaker, let there be monsters, mentioned sex, minor appearance of many characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-19
Updated: 2019-07-23
Packaged: 2020-07-08 21:17:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19876231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/your_Mother/pseuds/Veraverorum
Summary: Gabriel was Reaper. He had been Reaper for a long while now. He was  the ghost, dead and forgotten. There were not supposed to be others. He was not supposed to know them, miss them... meet them.Meet him.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Heyyy!  
> This year I had the pleasure to be paired up with Omaano (YAYYYY!) for the Reverse bigbang and this story is the product of our brainstorming over the beautiful art they created (if you hear a cry in the night, yeah that's me squealing over it)
> 
> A gigantic thank you as always to Lacertae and Ibijau for betaing and supporting (and bearing with) me during these 2 months of writing this story.
> 
> I love everyone in this bar! Have fun reading
> 
> (if I've forgotten any tags please let me know)

It happened every time someone tried to tell him a fairytale.

  
They never convinced Gabriel.  
  
  
He liked them, he really did -listening to marvelous stories of princes and knights and princesses and evil witches and evil step-moms always left him wanting for more, but a lot of that ‘more’ had to do with how dissatisfied he always felt whenever the tale reached its end.

There must have been something more to it than just doing things for the good of others, or caused by the greed of a single person, and he was not afraid to voice his thoughts… loudly, if possible. Who decided who was the hero and who the villain? Why was bravery one-sided when the ‘good guys’ did it, but when it was a villain standing all alone against the rest of the world, they were a fool?

  
While this made his sisters gently laugh and hug him to try and placate his mind running wild with scenarios, usually the other people found him too opinionated for a 7-years-old kid.

  
Good was good, bad was bad, and for them that was it, and Gabriel, with his skeptical ideas, with his little frown and too little words to express his dissatisfaction, was left to scoff at them, and at their oversimplified view they clung to.

One day he would have the right words for them to understand.

* * *

  
  


Saying that Egypt was hot was an understatement.

Global warming had made an already precarious balance of droughts and floods way worse, increasing the amount of sand in the desert and causing inhuman spikes in the temperatures, too high for the population to survive easily. Gabriel, with his Reaper attire -all black leather and heavy gear- was not helping his own situation either. The dry air felt like sandpaper in his lungs and the high temperatures made him even more sluggish than usual.

  
At least the nights were good.

To balance out the living hell of the day, nights were freezing nightmares for people, in a devious cycle between heat and cold that humans had learned to survive through.

  
Not Gabriel though. There were _some_ benefits in being what he was, and his fur helped. A lot.

  
At the moment though it was still day and Gabriel had nothing better to do than stay hidden in the shadows of some abandoned, broken down building with Sombra who croaked up in the earpiece every 5 minutes to chat about whatever went through her head, be it how silky Amélíe’s hair looked that day, how much of a cold shoulder Widowmaker was giving her, or the uselessness of Talon's next pet projects. Gabriel wasn't sure how much she was breaking a supposed work ethic by bad mouthing their boss through a surveyed intercom channel, but he wasn’t about to ruin her fun.

  
Despite himself he had to smile at her antics. The girl had grown on him. He had always had a weak spot for "lost children" even when they were actual adults and ended rounding them up under his wing, trying to make them become a better version of themselves -Jack used to call that his nurturing spirit. The idea made Gabriel laugh right into the Strike Commander’s face many times, yet here he was, with another ‘child’ under him, having some sort of mentoring relationship with her. Go figure.

  
Not that Sombra needed it, but it was undeniable how much she sought to bother Reaper, in and out of missions. So perhaps she might not _need_ a mentor, but she seemed to like him enough to keep coming back.

  
"Did you boil to death yet, _viejo_?" she sounded right at his side even though she was in another continent, plotting something else. Probably.

  
“You wish,” he answered back even if her question wasn't too far away from the truth. Gabriel was too hot. His nanoparticles felt like they were melting off of him. Maybe it wasn't his mind tricking him when he saw some whiffs of smoke dissolving up in the stale air of the run down building. Maybe that _was_ his body.

  
"Be strong, night will be there soon,” she tried to console him.

He hoped she was right.

* * *

Sombra obviously had been right.

  
Night was thankfully one of the few things that were still consistent in those uncertain times. Something that one could count on… unlike his target. Someone not better identified had been bothering Hakim, and consequentially _Talon_ , for a while. Theft, assault, espionage, everything that could be considered worth a bounty weighted on their head together with 70,000,000 currency.

It wasn't the reward that actually interested Gabriel in this specific case, instead it was the doubt that had been plaguing him for quite some time.

  
Gabriel had spent the night patrolling Hakim's camp like a deathly ghost, getting more and more irked with each second whoever he was waiting for did not appear. He had some suspicions to soothe.

  
Suspicions that latched onto his last thread of hope that still survived in his mind, making it feel more like a noose around his neck -unpleasant and oppressive.

  
By sunrise Gabriel had been a raging smoke cloud, tearing Sombra's ear off with his ranting, since she was the closest and safest person up for the job. The other people who had been on Reaper's path that night couldn't count themselves lucky enough to be able to _complain_ about his belligerent mood.

  
The mission objective was to guard a local warlord's camp, and Reaper had been doing the job pretty well, but still Gabriel wasn't satisfied.

  
It took him one more day to finally see the intruder he’d been waiting for.

  
The silence of the patrolling guards and the sudden commotion of gunfire called him forth. The open area in front of the gate was now empty, except for a single man wearing such a gaudy jacket that at any other time, Gabriel might have appreciated its manufacture. Unfortunately, he did not have the time to. He just needed to beat the shit out of this guy and be done with it… even though it would be a difficult task.

The hair might have changed in color, from sunlit gold to snow white, but Gabriel could still recognize that frame, that way of walking that reminded him of a constantly famished predator. With the way those broad shoulders tapered down into a thin waist, there was no doubt about who it was. Back from the dead right out from his past, like his worst nightmares … even if the cold smell of snow tipped him in the wrong direction.

  
Jack Morrison was alive.

Gabriel materialized right behind him. “Right here, Jack.”

  
There was no pause between his voice and his gun firing, and probably it wasn't that fair, shooting somebody in the back, but Gabriel wasn't about to lose his biggest advantage due to chivalry. He might not have a second opportunity to place such an hit.

  
The man who was supposedly Jack fell down on his knees, still alive even though he had just been gunned in the kidney. His trembling was pathetic and Gabriel felt the bile rise in his throat. If he had any gash there he was sure that it would be oozing out of it, as black as his blood. How dared Jack be still alive? How dared he get taken down with only one hit? How dared _he_?!

  
“Always rushing in. I know your every move even before you think it. Always have. Always will. I've been looking for you since Switzerland. Knew it'd take more than that to kill you. This is how it should have been.”

  
His desire to finish old revenge business was thundering in his veins, ready to be satisfied with the trigger of his gun, but before he could act on that impulse, something hit him, stinging in the shoulder and paralyzing him. His vocals chords were the only muscles in his body with enough mobility to emit a grunt.

  
Jack got hit as well, but not by his bullet. That gave him no satisfaction.

  
“The pain... It's gone...?” Jack murmured, voice metallic through the mask he was wearing.  
  
A voice that Gabriel thought had been forgotten in the wrinkles of time piped up from behind a turret in the wall, “Get in there Jack!”

  
As usual Jack was a stubborn mule who did things of his own head and rather than follow orders he attacked Reaper instead, who was still unresponsive. In its cowardice it was fair, since Gabriel had used similar low tricks as well.

  
Though it didn't last for long. Gabriel regained his bearings enough to actively participate in the scuffle, giving back as much as he received.

  
The other intruder though was not keen on the idea of letting the two of them continue with their senseless brawl -Gabriel got hit on the arm protection by yet another projectile.

  
It wouldn't do to let this other person interfere, since they were more powerful with a rifle in their hands.

  
Gabriel ran toward them, turning into smoke to materialize right by them and was thus greeted by a flurry of projectiles that actually turned out to be darts. It made him laugh. That was the confirmation he needed, if he had really needed one. Back to the theatrics.

  
“Hakim's been trying to draw out the one who has been sabotaging our operations. I've never expected that it'd be you... a _real_ ghost.” he threw a punch to Ana's rifle, effectively unarming her. “Not to mention _him_. Guess we old soldiers _are_ hard to kill. But I should have known… you always took his side.” Gabriel reprimanded her, but was too taken by his monologue to notice Ana's feet hitting him behind the knee to make him lose balance.

  
They both fell down from the gate, but in the heat of the moment Ana managed to remove the mask from his face.

  
The multiple gashes and red eyes that littered his face, all wide and pointed on Ana's own, left the woman's mouth hanging open in shock “What happened to you...?”

  
“He did this to me Ana. They left me to become this thing. They left you to die. They left me to suffer.”

  
Even if Ana was calling his name, Gabriel didn't stop his process of transformation into smoke. Disappearing from under her reach.

  
“... Never forget that.” He admonished her one last time before dissolving in the sky.  
  
  


* * *

  
Two hours later, Gabriel finally managed to return to his solid form in the shadow of another abandoned building, far away from Hakim's camp. It had never taken him so long to pass from one state to the other before.

  
His heart was beating to the rhythm of a thunder in his chest, neck and temples, and the incessant opening and closing of eyes all over his face, out of his control, was giving him a headache. He had to find a flat surface, clean enough from the sand, to lay down and rest.

  
Ana and Jack -he had just met them. They were alive, more than he was.

  
And they weren't supposed to be.

  
A wound in his chest opened again, filling it with anger and betrayal.

  
They were alive and had left him to die. Sort of. Even if it wasn't really their fault. He wasn't that much infuriated by Ana since she had disappeared long before Overwatch had completely, officially spiraled down into a disastrous mess. No, Gabriel was elated that she had gotten out of it mostly unscathed.

  
On the other hand, Jack though...

  
In all the sadness that he felt for the idea of Jack disappearing from existence, Gabriel had found a certain comfort in his absence. He was glad Jack wasn't there to see how the world that he had fought so strenuously to protect was decaying, how harsh the smearing campaigns against what they had worked hard to build were.

Gabriel was almost grateful Jack was dead. Had been. Fuck, couldn't the guy make things easy for anyone, could he?


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now that the canonish part of this fic is out of the way, here we go on with more interesting stuff.
> 
> Also I don't know id I've mentioned it but the title of this fic comes from the lyrics of Dynamite by Sigrid.
> 
> Thank you for reading!

Jack Morrison wasn't dead.

  
If Gabriel had had some suspicions before, some _hope_ , now he had certainties. Would have preferred not to, but here they were, slapping him in the face with everything they brought with them.

  
The Strike Commander hadn't perished in the attack at the Geneva base.

  
Jack Morrison hadn't passed away that day on the lakeside.

  
Jackie was _alive_.

  
"What's ruffling up your feathers, _viejo_?" Olivia had asked him the first chance she got to be alone with him when he returned to the Talon HQ.

  
It had taken a long wait between briefings with people more or less important in the food chain, Ogundimu himself included, and a checkup with blood test and X rays included by yours truly Moira, before Reaper had been cleared to be just Gabriel.

  
"None of your business,” he had answered between his too many teeth, face still covered by the white mask, trying to save some dignity when he wasn't in control of his own features. Something in him had not felt right since the meeting in Hakim's camp.

  
"No no, Gabrielito, that's no way to talk to me," draping herself on his left arm, Olivia managed to hug his biceps even if they were a bulging mass but she ended up dangling from his arm a few inches from the floor. It would have been a comic sight in a different situation, yet Gabriel couldn't find it in himself to laugh.

  
She caught on his troubled state and gently smashed her face against his skin like she were one of those cute, demanding puppies. "You can talk to me, you know that right?"

  
If Gabriel hadn't had an extremely sensible hearing he wouldn't have caught her words whispered against his arm. He hunched down to allow Olivia’s feet to reach the floor again, and freed himself from her clingy hug. Not that he disliked those hugs, but…

  
“I've seen ghosts,” he said it like it was an afterthought, yet it still felt vivid in his mind. It felt like betrayal and even if it was a childish reaction, he was upset by the knowledge that Jack and Ana were still alive after all, and possibly even working together. He had been overlooked once again.

  
Olivia lifted her hands, mimicking air quotes, as she spoke, "spooky ghosts?" she said, and then she lowered them, already opening a search screen from the circuits on her left arm "or ghosts that we should particularly beware of?" A map of Egypt was already loaded on the hologram, different points of interests for Talon popping up on it and looking ominously like tiny knives.

  
In that moment Gabriel felt like he had already said too much; he was already regretting his decision to speak. Something inside of him still felt that Ana and Jack were like family. It felt like it needed to protect them. From Olivia's questions, from Talon's inquiries, from any possible danger. It was completely irrational. More so if he considered that those two had efficiently protected themselves just fine all along. He owed them nothing.

  
“Ana,” and it felt as a boulder had been removed from his chest. The word was out of his mouth, he could do nothing about it now. Olivia's fingers zapped through different files popping up all around her where the face of a younger Ana in blue uniform sternly smiled up at Gabriel… like she knew what stuff he was up to nowadays and wasn't offended by it, as if he was no different than her own daughter. If only things were still that simple, he found himself wishing. As if.

  
“Ghost _s_ , Gabriel,” stressing the plural, Olivia kept searching through all the unsolved murder cases committed by snipers in the last 15 years, her eyes unfocused on the reality around her but Gabriel could see the working clogs of her brain in the furrowed curve of her eyebrows. Still, he hesitated giving up the second name.

  
With a sigh and a taloned hand, Gabriel first pushed off the hood of his coat and then took off the bone white mask, laying it down on the polished surface of the table. His eyes, all seven of them that were present on his face at the moment, blinked to adapt to the change of light, pupils dilating and eating some of the red iris surrounding them. Olivia didn't change expression at the revealing of the aberration in front of her, used to it by then. Yet her voice seemed to have a kind of reverence in it when she spoke again, though he didn't know why. Had she caught on the reason for his reticence of giving her the second name? How much did she actually know? How deep did she dig in his past?

  
For a brief moment Olivia's eyes refocused to look straight into his main pair, “did you know that an Overwatch recall signal has recently been broadcasted recently?”

At the touch of her fingers, new windows popped up, showcasing the latest photo and data available of people from Gabriel's past. Lena, Winston, Jesse...

  
She was looking for signs in the dips of his scars and tense line of his mouth with every passing picture, now he was sure of it. Though he was convinced he could maintain a neutral facade. Comradery with those people had long died along his previous life as Gabriel Reyes, on the shore of Geneva lake.

  
“No,” he replied brusquely, yet his nostrils flared briefly when Jack's stern face suddenly appeared in front of him. How young he had been. How naive. Until his last day.

  
“Oh.” That was all that Olivia could muster in response to his reaction, a vague sense of sorrow painting her features.

  
That night Gabriel locked himself in his assigned room.  
  
  
It was bare, soulless, but he didn't care about that; there was no use spending time on it since he barely even used it. He preferred luxurious hotel rooms, or chatting in the common room with Olivia, Amélie and some few hand-picked agents. Or even at the firing range, destroying some droids to let out some steam. That night though -no. He had shut himself away, wanting nothing to do with other people. Gabriel already felt raw after his talk with Olivia, like she’d looked deep inside him, only to find wounds there that had never truly healed and were still bleeding. He would never take the chance to let somebody else see him like that, ever again. Olivia had had to promise him to keep her mouth shut. It hadn’t been a difficult task to get her to agree with him -there was no love Olivia had to spare for the terrorist agency financing their escapades, and without knowing it, also their side projects, but he still wanted to err on the side of caution. After all, he knew that little hacker would be capable of using his… secrets… to her advantage, eventually.

  
The nanoparticles under his skin were buzzing uncontrollably as he continued to think over and over about the conversations he’d had recently. Jack, Ana, Olivia and then again Jack, Ana, Olivia, Jack, Jack JackJack _Jack_.

  
Before realizing it, his hand was through the wall, stuck in it with his claws until Gabriel had to tear the plaster down from its support and little chips scattered around him. What cheap material had Ogundimu paid for… there were cables and pipes, the bones of the structure, now exposed to sight, their low buzzing easier to perceive that way, and behind them the wall of the next room, unoccupied.

  
He was about to attack another portion of wall when he heard light steps approaching his door and then he heard a confident knocking on the metal slider. Moira. He knew it was her without needing to check who was at the door. A smell of sulfur and antiseptic followed here wherever she went, making it easy for Gabriel to locate her anywhere on the base.

  
“What do you want now, O'Deorain?” he growled to the closed door, hoping against hope that the doctor was stopping by just to wish him goodnight. Sometimes he could really be a fool.

  
“Not even the privilege of opening the door for me?” he could hear her sighing dramatically on the other side. “And here I thought I was your favourite doctor.”

  
Moira could be inconveniently stubborn when she wanted, but it categorically was only when her researches were involved. Something must have happened to make her abandon her secret lair and come bother him in person. And she wasn't going through the official way of papers and signed orders.

  
A cold shiver ran through Gabriel's back.

  
Without bothering to wear his mask again, Gabriel quickly pushed the button to open the door and nodded at her to indicate she could move inside.

  
“Cheers!” she said crossing the entrance, and with a swift glance around to commit to memory the layout of the room, she commented on the freshly opened hole in the wall, “nice decorations you have there.”

  
“I'm not the kind of person who repeats things twice, O'Deorain, so you’d better speak up and do it quickly.” Trying not to sound too unnerved by the presence of the woman, Gabriel closed the door with perhaps a little too much force and then turned around to face her.

  
Moira was studying him with her odd, mismatched eyes, and that day Gabriel had had enough of people paying too much attention to his unmasked face. Three of his eyes blinked at her while a fang grew dangerously long, slightly puncturing his upper lip. The taste of blood mixed with the nanoparticles was at least reassuring, copper and ash sharp on his tongue when he licked the cut clean. At least something familiar, among all this unsettling bullshit.

  
“Funny to see you do that,” Moira tapped a finger against her jaw, in a pensive manner. “Your blood is acting… funny.”

  
Gabriel had only two eyebrows, but their furrowing was enough to express his question and invitation for her to continue.

  
“You see, I'm used to your blood acting weird with all the stuff that they've pumped in it and then the added nanoparticles, but…” she looked at her nails, suddenly faking disinterest in her explanation as if it wasn't enough to lure her out from her laboratories, “I’ve seen some of my petri dishes explode under the microscope due to all the activity inside them. It's a bloody mess if you ask me.” Moira laughed at her own pun, holding her side. Still it wasn't amusing at all for Gabriel.

  
“So now I had to ask myself, why would that happen?” her eyes returned to fix him as her mouth moved to speak, but Gabriel now wished she would just shut up and go away.

  
“Everything that I had to say is written word for word on the files that I'm sure you've already read,” he said, military stance both in his posture and voice. He had abandoned those manners a long time ago, but sometimes it was the only way to deliver a message home.

  
“Are you _sure_ about that?” there wasn't that much of a difference in height between the two of them, and Moira was the one on the shorter side there, yet she still managed to be intimidating, with her face mere inches from Gabriel's one.

  
“Positive.”  
  
At the word, she recoiled and sighed. “I see. Have it you way then, Reaper, but I shall keep my eyes on you.”

  
Sidestepping Gabriel, Moira moved to the door and pushed the button to let herself out. It was far from Gabriel's mind to stop her.

  
Once he was finally alone, he sat on the edge of the pristine bed, his shoulders hunched as his arms rested on his knees, slowly taking the clawed gloves off one finger at a time.

  
Moira was onto him.

  
And for what exactly, he wasn't sure.

  
The unexpected meeting back in Egypt must have affected him more than he thought if even his blood was acting up.

  
There had been something strange in that. Stranger than seeing supposedly dead people from his past being actually alive and well.

  
Ana had been older, different from the person that she had been once upon a time, yet she still managed to preserve her idealism. Incense still sticking to her skin like a natural smell and a preference for Jack. It had stung badly.

  
Then there was Jack. Soldier: 76, the vigilante who had been sabotaging Talon's work and who had a behavior pattern, a way of acting that was too similar to the former Strike Commander for it to be just a coincidence. Even if Gabriel wanted to be surprised, he couldn't. He had hoped to be wrong, longed for it with the same fervor he longed to feel those hands on him once again. Gabriel had conflicting desires, he was tragically aware of it.

  
It would have been so much easier if Jack had been actually dead. A torture, but easier on Gabriel than the alternative.

  
In that moment though, he could feel some sliver of hope rekindle in his chest with each and every breath.

  
Jack was alive, with thin pure white hair and the smell of snow clinging onto him.

  
Something had happened to him. Something completely different than officially dying, surviving, giving up on one own identity and becoming a fighter. Something more than a mere human could handle.

  
He could feel his blood thrumming in his veins, stronger and stronger until it was pounding like a drum. Then Gabriel exploded in a black cloud of smoke that gravitated toward the ceiling.

  
Jackie was alive.


	3. Chapter 3

There were a few things Gabriel was still certain of -among them, that Sombra was actually _not_ working in Talon’s favour.

Yes, she might have been working _for_ them, but she had different goals than they did and was far more interested in a mutually beneficial relationship where she could jump ship the moment things didn't go her way rather than stay faithful to Ogundimu's plans.

  
So no, he didn't think she had ratted anything out. Not after pounding on his door the day after his return with a giant paper bag filled with salty popcorn in her left arm and two unopened bottles of cold beer in her right.

  
“Don't even think that I will let you get a taste, _las palomitas son mias_ ,” she said before handing him one of the two bottles and diving on the bed. Gabriel wasn't even surprised anymore, it was not the first time that Olivia raided his room, but it had never happened at the HQ before.

  
As she picked up the fallen popcorn one by one before popping them in her mouth, she handed Gabriel the second beer as well. Without asking questions, he opened the two bottles with his fangs and sat down next to her, back against the wall, giving back one of them to her. “So, to what do I owe the honor of your visit?”

  
“Very funny _viejo_. Can't I just come over to visit my fave grandpa?” she touched different section of her left arm and an holographic screen projected itself in front of them while the lights of the room dimmed.

  
“I'm your _only_ grandpa,” Gabriel took a sip of the beer. It wasn't going to get him drunk or anything, but at least it was cool. “Olivia, seriously.”

  
Olivia tried to lose time by munching on some imaginary super resistant popcorn. “Ok, ok. Yesterday you looked sort of blue and I felt sorry for you.” She too took a sip from her bottle before rushing out her next words, “But don't get used to me being so kind and sweet and awesome all the time, ok _viejo_?”

  
He chuckled, as if Olivia could be anything but. “As you say. So, what are we watching?”

  
There was a manic glint in her eyes. “A classic. Armageddon!”

  
The music started.

* * *

  
It still came as a surprise and a bother when Ogundimu called Reaper back to his office with no new mission in sight, three days after his return.

There was no actual reason, in Gabriel's opinion, for that meeting -so somebody must have said something to him. Who had it been, and how much should they pay for it?

  
The man was sitting at his desk, imposing figure draped in the best handmade suit that his money could afford … and that was a lot of money. It was so perfectly tailored for him that it made the onlooker understand just how low they were crawling in comparison to Ogundimu]. His focus was all on the papers he was holding in his hands.

  
“You called for me boss?” Reaper adopted his military stance once again, standing in front of the desk with arms crossed behind the back and legs wide open, white mask in place.

  
Rising his eyes from the files, Ogundimu shot him a calculating glance for a brief moment before pushing his reading glasses back up on the bridge of his nose.

  
“Yes, I did.” He waved the papers in his hand to lead Reaper's attention on them. “Got those from O'Deorain. They're… interesting.”

  
There was his answer. research that witch was conducing on his blood must have given her some sort of result, not just messing up her lair as she’d complained about. He was almost curious to know what the outcome of that was, but in due time -he was sure Ogundimu would get to it.

  
As if reading Reaper's mind, Akande threw the papers on his desk before exhaling deeply. The bone mask was an effective barrier between the two men, preventing Akande from reading his expression and protecting Gabriel from the other man's searching gaze. “I would guess that O'Deorain has already informed you of the… eccentricities she has observed in your latest blood test, the one right after the Egypt mission.”

  
Akande remained silent to allow Reaper to acknowledge his words.

“Affirmative, boss.” It was no use avoiding the truth in this kind of situation. Ogundimu was a powerful man and, on top of that, an obstinate one. The sooner the subject was dead and Reaper out of that office, the happier Gabriel would be.

  
With a grunt, Akande continued. “The only variable that could have influenced such an oddity is the people you've met, as you reported in your debriefing.”

  
Reaper's back tensed, and the thing didn't get lost to Akande's sharp eyes. “Ana Amari and Jack Morrison.”

  
“Affirmative, boss.” Gabriel was getting fed up with repeating those two words.

  
“At least you're one of the few sincere ones.” Ogundimu crossed his hands in front of his face, strong finger interlaced in front of a pensive expression that soon dissolved in one of the most solemn visages that Gabriel had ever seen. It didn't stand a chance to Jack's gravity during his Strike Commander's days but it still was in the top five. Reaper didn't move an inch and waited in silence for the man to continue and state his purpose.

  
“Do you have any idea on why this meeting could have instigated such a reaction in your blood cells?”

  
A clapping come back wasn't exactly the most professional answer that Reaper could give and even if he was renowned for his unprofessional methods, so this time it was better to avoid any more problems. “I'm in the dark as much as you are about this, I guess.”

  
No, Gabriel didn't know why meeting his ex-colleagues, ex-friends, had had such an effect on him. He didn't know why he was more restless than usual. There was no apparent connection between those two ghosts and Gabriel constantly exploding in black smoke clouds out of nowhere. Yet Gabriel was left with the feeling of a deep betrayal and the cold smell of snow that he could still feel lingering in his nose -one that sent his blood boiling whenever it seemed to get stronger.

  
And so Gabriel‘s frame started smoking again.

  
It was slow at first, just some of his uncovered skin splitting from him and floating up in the air, sucked up by the air conditioning of the office. It was a tiny smoke trail, not unlike that of a campfire at night.

  
At that sight, Ogundimu grunted against his hands. “I see.”

  
He removed his glasses before massaging the bridge of his nose. “I'll be curt about this, Reaper, since you are…” Akande indicated the other’s figure without putting the concept into words. ‘A mess about to explode again’ did not sound professional at all.

  
“I want you to capture Ana Amari and Jack Morrison the next time they cross your path. Alive, possibly. O'Deorain has expressed her desire to study their influence on your nanoparticles. And frankly we could do with less painin the neck for our agency.”

  
By the time he had finished, Ogundimu was massaging his temple. “Have I been clear enough?”

  
“Affirmative, boss,” Reaper answered back, losing more and more particles every second that passed by, a steady stream that got swallowed up by the air ducts above him.

  
“Good, then you can go.” Finally Ogundimu dismissed Reaper from the meeting.

  
Gabriel didn't sprint out of the door, but neither did he move slowly. His steps were quick and his stride wide. It was not enough still -he did not manage to reach his room before his body exploded, filling the corridors of the HQ with dark, thick smoke.

  
It took Gabriel almost one hour to return to his solid form, and he found Amélie waiting for him with infinite patience, a blanket in her arms. He didn't need it but it still brought him comfort.

* * *

  
Much to Gabriel's chagrin, the following day he was summoned for another one of those meetings.

This time it was by Moira though. Again. He already felt on the war path since the doctor had tattled his _bloody_ business to the big boss so having to deal with her again was not on top of his list of activities to at the moment, just plunging him in even a worse mood. There were many things the woman had to answer to. To her conscience, if she even had one, but lacking that, Gabriel would be satisfied with some explanations _to him_.

  
He waited patiently for the lab’s hydraulics to open the door with a hiss before striding inside.

  
It would have been an unsettling place if he wasn't used to it, or to the uniqueness of the person who owned it. Moira had always been more prone to produce shivers rather than smiles in the people who experienced her presence. The equipment that she surrounded herself with certainly didn't help. There were tall tanks filled with eerily colored liquids, bubbles rising to the top every now and then, centrifuges that never seemed to stop their mixing job, charts depicting data and figures not understandable for people not in the field… the occasional human body part that wasn't _supposed_ to be there, and permeating the air, a nauseating smell of putrefaction. If he hadn't been used to all of that for years, even before the birth of Talon, Gabriel would have thought he had stepped right onto the set of a horror movie.

  
As the perfect stereotype of the crazy doctor, Moira was bent over a microscope, her long back arching. It seemed she hadn't even noticed Gabriel's entrance in her den.

  
“So what is it that you want from me now?” he asked abruptly, leaning against the edge of a table that seemed safe enough, free from pointy tools and oozing vials.

  
“Hello to you as well, Gabriel,” she tried to sound friendly, but it was a lost cause with her. Moira moved her face away from the machinery and looked at the man, assessing his situation.

  
When she received no acknowledgment, she kept talking. “I imagine you already spoke with Doomfist. He has informed you of your new duty has he not?” Her necrotic hand shifted to straighten the lapel of the lab coat she was wearing, and Gabriel’s four eyes could do nothing but follow the movement of that limb, looking so out of place on a living being.

  
He shook his head quickly to try to focus on the conversation. “What about my new duties then?”

  
The new question didn't seem to satisfy Moira though. “Defensive much, aren't we?” She sighed, hiding her right hand out of sight “Listen, your blood cells have been acting up since you've returned from Egypt, and I've seen this kind of stuff happen to you only in presence of the youngest Shimada, back in the days. Do you get what I mean?”

  
Gabriel startled at her implication, another red eye popping open in the middle of his forehead. Yes, he did get what she meant, and he wished she hadn't.

  
Moira was too smart, too cunning. She was potentially very dangerous. Finding information and keeping it away until it was useful to her plans, to her researches.

  
For his own safety, for protecting who didn't deserve it, Gabriel kept silent.

  
Grimacing, disapproval evident in her tone, Moira continued. “I need you to bring me back those two. Alive. I don't care how much you mess them up, but they must be alive. I suspect there's another Carrier between them.” She turned to her microscope and paper then, giving her back to Reaper.

  
“Maybe both, who knows.” she mumbled to nobody specifically, as if Reaper had already left the room.

  
It didn’t take much longer for him to truly leave, after that.

  
Reaper spent the rest of the day destroying simulation robots and tearing walls down with his own hands at the firing range, leaving only devastation at his passage.  
  
  


* * *

It was another week before Reaper officially had another mission to attend to.

He had listened half-heartedly to the debriefing. His head had been elsewhere, far away from the HQ since his last meeting with Moira, turning the information over in his mind. There was no way that Moira had half-assed what she’d said. She was the kind of person who spoke only when she could be backed by concrete evidence, and Gabriel didn't like what that implied.

  
He would have noticed if something like that had actually happened. He would have known. Ana, Jack and him had been close. Gabriel knew their smells like they were his own. He would have realized if one of them were like... _him_.

  
But it wasn't possible.

  
Ana had always been a normal person. Yes she had a cybernetic eyes installed in place of her natural one and an iron will, a duty-bound sniper working for Overwatch, but that wasn't enough to make her different. With all the love and respect that Gabriel felt for her, he knew her DNA was no different than that of any other normal person. Her hands were full of maternal acceptance when she toyed with Gabriel's hair after a difficult day, and her eyes crinkled in mischief, the wrinkles of her skin distorting her tattoo, when she saw things Gabriel himself couldn’t, not at the time. She was perceptive and smart, sometimes misguided in her righteousness and that sometimes made her endearing -if not downright infuriating. And beautiful in the way that the more you loved somebody, the more they appeared attractive in your eyes.

  
Even though all of this, Ana was tragically human and Gabriel occasionally wished that that wasn’t the case. One day he would have to mourn again on her grave.

  
On the other hand Jack was more difficult to pinpoint. It had taken a Gabriel a whole life to manage it and he still had failed. Now that they were both supposedly dead, Jack was still holding out some surprises for him. Gabriel had thought multiple times he had Jack figured out, but now he was aware that his knowledge of the other man had at most managed to reach seventy-five percent of the total. There had always been something mysterious that Gabriel had never fully grasped about Jack.

  
Officially, he too had been subjected to the SEP treatment, making him a human being with super powers -super strength, super speed… a fair share of extra traits that were the envy of the rest of the army. But. Of all the people who had entered the SEP program, Jack and Gabriel had been the only 2 to come out of it on the other side. All the other soldiers, and there had been many, had fallen like flies one after the other with every shot of the enhanced substance injected in their bloodstream.

  
Gabriel wasn't prone to believe in luck, but in that moment he viscerally wished it had actually been just that -luck. He knew it wasn't his case. There were medical researches and papers ready to prove it, leaving him with an ashen taste in his mouth, right between his gums and those pointy fangs that never really disappeared.

  
Jack had been a force of nature. His enthusiasm had made the crowds fall in love with him, but they hadn't been the only ones ensnared by it. The charm that Jack exercised could move armies and history itself, making him become one of the people who were able to shape the world. That hadn't saved him from bringing chaos and destruction wherever he went though, or just save him in the end. There was no light without shadow and no peace without war and Jack had never been one to grasp subtlety. He had believed in black and whites as counterparts and not as complements. Everything was to the extreme with him. The way he lived, the way he fought, the way he loved.

  
Gabriel was glad, now more than ever, for the bone mask he was wearing. He could feel blood rise to his slashed cheeks and he didn't want anybody to gawk at his strange reaction and ask what was its cause. Explaining to a handful of mercenaries that remembering the many times he had caught his best friend in compromising situations and especially that he remembered them as fond memories wasn't on Gabriel's list of pleasant activities for the day.

  
But they were still burning in his mind. Jack's pale legs opened wide and Vincent between them. The expanse of his scarred back as he crouched down on his knees. The savagery of those two men for whom making love was never a tender thing. And Gabriel, involuntary bystander cultivating over time a voyeuristic desire, finding pleasure in catching them, admiring their bodies fighting and burning. Then, when there was no longer Vincent in the picture and Jack had needed someone to let out the steam, Gabriel had seemed the most natural option. There had been no sentimental bond between them, nothing deeper than the love that they had felt for each other as friends though one could say it had been intense specifically _because_ of that. Yet it had been oh so consuming the excitement that they had found in each other, basking in the feeling of naked skin against skin and deep bites that left bruises on their bodies, the smell of Jack entering Gabriel's body from his nose buried in a blond nape or pubes. That sensation of burning at the touch of alabaster hands. Cold. Burning from cold at the passage of those fingers. A pleasure that Gabriel had never found before Jackie and never experienced after him. He almost missed those days of abandon to their baseless instincts.

  
More than that, he missed Jackie though. Jackie the stubborn mule who fought with all of himself and gave as much, no matter where, no matter to who.

  
Gabriel knew Jack painfully well. He would have noticed if something was amiss in him.

  
And that was the actual problem. Maybe he had been lying to himself all this time to try to protect Jack from what he possibly was. To protect the image of Jack that Gabriel had built in his mind.

  
A human Jack, subjected to pain and age. A Jack who had eventually died.

  
Jack wasn't like Gabriel, and he had been glad of that.

  
Except… not quite.

  
Jack was alive and the same shit run through the veins of both of them. SEP and everything else.

  
It hurt to admit it even just to himself. Jack hadn't been perfect with his frail humanity.

  
The more Gabriel thought about it, the more it all made sense. It needed to be someone like him to survive SEP and reach the heights that Jack had.

  
The warning alarm of the helicarrier's door closing woke Reaper up from his reverie. The pilot exhorted to fasten the seat belts through the speaker and Reaper promptly ignored it. It wasn't like he was at risk of dying due to something as simple as a plane crash. It would take way more than that.  
  
Like another one like him.  
  
  
Gabriel had no intention to die again, and neither did he wish to put Ana or Jack in the clutches of Talon. They were _his_ to deal with.

  
Eventually.

  
The helicarrier took off from the airstrip and towards the next objective.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I bet everyone was dying to see Jack again XD
> 
> Hey, in this chapter there's a beautiful extra picture by Omaano! Don't you love it?!

Against all odds, it actually took more than a month for Soldier: 76 to cross Reaper's path again.

It seemed that Jack had managed to play interference to Talon's plan without giving Reaper the time to even appear on the field, while Shrike had completely disappeared from Talon's radars even in her home country.

  
Gabriel would say he was glad about it, but up until that moment nobody had thought to ask his opinion, so… one less omission to make. Only Olivia had seemed like she’d caught his reluctance, looking at him with lips twisted in a mix of a grin and a complacent smile, but had said nothing. She knew he wasn't looking forward to meeting his ex-colleagues/friends again. It wasn't her business to dig too deep in his motivations, even if she had tried to bribe Gabriel out of his silence on the subject with small talks in front of a cold beer, but when he had clammed up Olivia had relented; some wounds were still too fresh, even after years since they had been inflicted. It was like Gabriel never had closure for them, even if he thought he didn't need it. If he had to be honest, he has never felt the need for it… until the moment he had met those two again. Even his emotions had been dead up until then, not just his body.

  
It felt like a dam had broken down, and the river of emotions it had been holding back had cascaded onto dry ruins. More often than not, Gabriel found himself fantasizing about meeting them again.

  
Sometimes it was only Jack he ended up catching up that lost time with, other times it was Ana alone the one he had a heartfelt conversation with. The problem was when he thought about them both together, though. Gabriel got so caught up in all the words, all the accusations that had never been said before, so worked up he got lost in his mind, that he still ended up exploding into dark clouds of nanoparticles without control. It was getting less frequent with each passing day but it still could be bothersome, and it didn't keep Gabriel from feeling Moira's eyes pinned on his back, whether it be physical or gaseous. The doctor was still waiting for for him to bring back two captives, all the while keeping him monitored after each mission, to gauge if there had been any relevant changes in him.

  
On his part, Gabriel had no intention of giving her any results though. Jack and Ana were _his_ , for good or bad, and he felt possessive and protective at the same time about them. No matter if that felt contradictory.  
  


* * *

It was with some displeasure that Reaper spotted Soldier: 76 straight in his field of vision.

The big oaf had no qualms about being discovered, it seemed. Whenever he was not busy punching black-clad minions, he stood tall and proud, then his shoulders bent forward and his arm distended, followed by the sickening crunch of bones giving away and somebody falling on the ground among the crumbled remains of a collapsed wall. The grayish fog of plaster shards and dust eventually dissipated, leaving Soldier: 76's figure looming on his enemies.

  
Even if the bone mask let only two of Gabriel's eyes look out, he could still strongly smell that winter fragrance that nowadays seemed to follow the other man. Jack had never made Gabriel's nose react in that way, putting many questions in his brain. Why? When did it happen? Had it always been that way and Gabriel had been too wrapped in his own gloom to even notice?

  
As if on cue, Soldier: 76 raised his head when he perceived Reaper approaching. There was a mask on his face too, but neither of the two barriers could stop the two man from staring at each other.

  
The building around them, an abandoned factory where Ogundimu had seen fit to set up some of his production machinery, was crumbling down. Gabriel could hear the old bones of the structure creaking with every hit that it involuntarily received. It wouldn't be a surprise if suddenly a hole opened in the roof and the moonlight peek in on what remained of what had once been rooms, rusty equipment and pipes. What a sight it would be though, shining on Jack's snow white hair, surrounded by the chaos and destruction he had created, reflecting in the pools of blood on the floor.

  
It was an enticing but dangerous thought, and Gabriel was aware of it. If he let himself think so warmly of Jack once again, as if the years and betrayals had never happened, Gabriel would let himself fall back in his bad habits, like forgiveness and desire. He shouldn't. Vengeance was more stable, it gave him a reason to go on when the world had shut its doors on his face even before he had died.

  
“You again!” Jack's voice boomed electronic behind the mask.

  
The few underlings who still were around and had the possibility to scatter away did just that, disappearing through every opening left standing and away in the nights and on whatever vehicle they found to get them out of there. The cowards had not spared any time to rescue their fallen comrades who were left wheezing on the floor, sure that with Reaper's appearance the menace that was Soldier: 76 would be vanquished, that the caped monster would protect them, that he was one of them.

  
Scum, all of them. Reaper had more _important_ things to handle at the moment.

  
In fact, he found himself with a handful of Jack to deal with far too soon.

  
The man's fist almost connected with Gabriel's face, and would have hit home if not for his quick reflexes that made him bend on the side, half dematerializing around the black glove of the left hook Jack seemed enthusiastic to gift him. Again. It had been ages since the last time one of Jack's fist had connected with Gabriel's face and he would prefer to keep it to that -a memory.

  
To repay Jack the courtesy, Gabriel thrust his right hand up, claws first, right into the man's left side; it wasn't a surprise that Jack managed to avoid it by pivoting on himself - but Luck was in Gabriel’s favor. Easily dissolving into a cloud, he reappeared right against Jack's back.

  
“Hello Jackie, did you miss me?” Gabriel whispered in his ear. He knew it was not his imagination that had Jack shiver against his chest. What good memories it called back -of Jack trembling in his arms, of holding him and nuzzling that fine golden hair and breathing his scent.

  
Distracted as he was by the sweet memory, Gabriel was taken by surprise when Jack hit him in his chest with an elbow, making him wheeze. He rolled on the floor with the force of the blow, the debris smoking up around him.

  
Gabriel's fangs sprouted in his mouth under the mask, twisting it into a mix of smile and grimace. He wasn't expecting a warm hug as a welcome, but that wasn't bad either.

  
Not leaving Jack any time to attack him again, Gabriel sprung back on his feet and dove in.

The backhand that he managed to land on Jack's visor felt more like an assessing blow than real damage though, even if some chips of red plastic flew in the air. Jack was calculating, evaluating him in his mind, and Gabriel almost preened at the idea. Having Jack's attention back on him again felt exciting, a sensation that he had missed in the past years.

  
“What are you waiting for, boy scout? Ana is not here to protect you this time,” he goaded Jack, hoping to make him lose his temper. It wouldn't be good if Jack had become more of a strategist with age; some people got better over time, but Jack had never been a regular person, already a golden boy in his youth, and at this point Gabriel wasn't even sure he was actually a person, so what else could be said about him? Time hadn't been as cruel to Jack as it had been to Gabriel.

  
He so wanted to take that head between his hands and rip that useless mask off, to see perfectly with his multiple eyes what had become of that beloved face. Last time at Hakim's camp Gabriel hadn't stuck around long enough to see Jack take it off but the man's body still looked like a finely tuned weapon.

  
And it screamed _danger_.

  
Jack skidded forwards under Gabriel's body, going for the ankles with his own feet. With a jump and a somersault, Gabriel avoided that blow, but was taken by surprise when a kick hit him in the chest, making him fly once again through the hall.

  
If he had to be honest, Gabriel was almost liking it. Jack was still strong, powerful. Maybe even more than before. A sea of possibilities stood in front of him.

  
Gabriel stood up.

  
Out of the blue, static sound cracked in Gabriel's right ear. Too taken by the action, he had forgotten about the radiophone that connected him to his handler. Olivia's voice chirped from the other side, "do you need reinforcements?"

  
It sounded ludicrous. _Reaper_ was the reinforcement.

  
"Don't worry, I can handle the situation," he whispered back, Jack still stalling in front of him while assessing the situation at hand, fists raised in the pose of a boxer.

  
"Don't make me regret this," Olivia answered at the same time as Jack spoke again.

"Has death made you senile, too?"

  
It was a statement to Jack‘s adaptability: now _he_ was the one doing the mocking, trying to lure Reaper into losing his coolness and attack without a plan.

  
As if on cue, the roof collapsed on them, opening a gash above that let the moonlight flood into the building.

  
Gabriel's previous thoughts had been right. Jack's figure was unsettlingly beautiful in the cold light of the moon. Where Gabriel had broken off a piece of visor, the rays reflected on some opalescent scales like a map to a secret treasure hidden under the cover of the mask, giving Gabriel one more reason to want to properly see Jack's face.

  
With a loud cracking sound, Gabriel stretched his neck left and then right.

  
Jack was no longer human and there was his proof.

  
Gabriel had to make a decision on what to do. How to proceed and defeat the entity in front of him.

  
If Jack was actually like him, the guns strapped to Gabriel's sides would be practically useless. A hindrance, even.

  
In a flash, Gabriel unfastened the guns and threw them to the side.

  
That was the signal that Jack had been waiting for -he attacked.

  
His super speed was enough to bring him immediately in front of Gabriel, headbutting him hard right in the middle of his mask; it cracked at the impact and Gabriel laughed when he saw that there were more cracks on the red glass of Jack's mask too.

  
His knee flew straight into Jack's abdomen, making the man bend in two.

  
Gabriel wasn't playing anymore.

  
As if understanding that, the moment he stopped wheezing Jack unhooked his pulse rifle from his back and put it down on the floor, careful to not damage it.

  
They were fighting on the same level then, with just their bodies as weapons.

  
Jack resumed his defensive position and as that, it became a blur of limbs and bodies for the following 30 minutes. Blow after blow, a violent rendition of hide-and-seek, the two continued their fight, destroying more and more of their surroundings -ironic, considering Reaper was supposed to defend the area from intruders… Soldier 76 in particular.

  
Each blow that landed gave them satisfaction and each one that was parried was only there to rise the anticipation for the next one.

  
There were long gashes bleeding on both their bodies but they didn't care as long s they were close to each other, delivering damage as it were caresses.

  
Even if the effort of the constant struggle against an equal opponent was taking its toll on their bodies, neither Gabriel nor Jack seemed to want to stop until one of them was out of combat… or worse. It wasn't only about that specific Talon outpost, definitely not; it was like there was a conversation going with each blow that spoke of all the things they hadn't been able to talk about since before The Explosion and even earlier than that. All their frustration and lack of communication between them was wrapped around fists that hit home and knees that knocked out the breath.

  
The white bone mask that Gabriel wore had cracked in half, and most of his eyes had shifted to the uncovered side to study what had become of Jack. Fine muscles honed by years of war and illicit chemicals still clung to Jack like he hadn't aged a day past 25 under his ridiculous leather attire, a bullseye for anyone searching for clues starting from Jack himself, yet his thin hair as white as snow, the scars and scales on his face were new. Even if Gabriel wanted to ask questions and even more he wanted to receive answers, every time he got too close to Jack's body his cold smell managed to give Gabriel a brain freeze that rendered him useless except to fight.

  
They were at an impasse -even if they kept striking each other without stalling.

  
Black blood oozed out of wounds covering Gabriel's body turning into smoke that faded in the air, but Jack was in no better situation. His heart was beating fast, Gabriel's ears could pick up its incessant drumming even between all the grunts and gasps that the two men were producing. Those ice blue eyes were starting to get unfocused before Jack grimaced and shook off of his fighting stance.

  
“Gabriel…”  
  
That hoarse voice without any barrier between them was enough to finally make Gabriel's knees buckle. He took a deep breath through his nose, with the pungent cold still seeping in it, and looked up at the moon, so bright and round and unconcerned about their existence. It made his blood boil inside him.

  
“Jack,” he finally acknowledged the other man without a trace of mockery.

  
“We're in a deadlock here.” Stating the situation strangely made it even more real. Jack was right but hearing it left a sour taste in Gabriel's mouth.

  
“Well what do you propose then, boy scout?” he might have dropped the physical fight, yet some bite remained in his spirit. It was a pleasure seeing Jack brows furrow, like the old days though those forehead scales were not present, back then.

  
“Very funny, I had missed that about you,” Jack scratched the back of his neck with one hand in the same way that he used to do when he was nervous and Gabriel still called him Jackie. He pulled an heavy sigh and brought both hands on his hips before gently kicking a rubble. It still crossed half the room. “So... How much do you want me dead from 1 to 10?”

  
“Not particularly,” with practiced ease Gabriel slid down his hood and took off what remained of his mask. The moonlight hit him straight in the face, creating dramatic shadows in the gashes scattered on his cheeks. His eyes moved around on his features, excited for the absence of restraints, their wide open red irises drinking in the sight in front of them: Jack, taken aback but unable to move his gaze away from Gabriel's face. “I guess you have questions for me. God knows how many I have for you.”

  
“Truce then?” Jack proposed uncertain, inspecting from afar the changes that had occurred in Gabriel's appearance.

  
It was liberating to finally move his ears around freely, back and forth, both at the same time. With all his eyes fixed on Jack, Gabriel started talking, but not to him. “Sombra, can you make the records look like Soldier: 76 escaped?” He didn't miss the way Jack perked up at hearing the name of his colleague, recognizing it.

  
“Positive, leave it to me. But are you sure you're going to be ok?” it was heartwarming to hear the concern in her voice.

  
Gabriel hummed. “There's only one way to find out. I've gone to town to search for food. See you, good girl.” Without allowing Olivia time to answer, Gabriel pulled out the radiophone from his ear and crushed it between his fingers.

  
Having used the time of the conversation to pick up and fasten his blaster to the his chest again and get close to him, Jack stood next to Gabriel, eyes engrossed by the fluffy ears. Go figure that he would focus on that oddity among all the ones that Gabriel sported. Pointing the one closest to Jack on him, Gabriel spoke, his tone much lower and relaxed than it had been all night long. “Follow me.”

  
Maybe it wasn't a smart move to leave his weapons on the floor and let an armed super soldier enemy walk behind him, but Jack's smell of woods and blizzard was getting to Gabriel's head. It spoke of wilderness and promises and Gabriel wanted to card his fingers between the white locks and press his fingertips against each scale to learn all of their bumps.

  
Some corridors and staircases later, the two men entered a ran-down mezzanine that broke at the same height of the gap in the roof. The moon illuminated a poor excuse of a bed and an old half empty duffel bag. It was the place that Gabriel had been occupying for the last 3 days when he wasn't busy patrolling. Not that he actually needed to sleep, but he still had some dignity and required human accommodations.

  
He walked toward the mattress on the floor, moved the purple sheet away and picked up the lousy pillow on top of it to throw it at Jack's chest. “You can sit on it.” he said while he did the same thing on the pallet.

  
“What? Keeping the bed all for yourself? You were never this greedy with the covers...” Jack's eyes opened wide like saucers when he realized what he had said, how easily he had fallen back into old banters with his friend.

  
Something that Gabriel thought was lost forever for him happened: Jack blushed. What sweet memories it recalled!

  
Licking his lips, he watched Jack let go of the cushion on the floor and unceremoniously drop on it, trying to hide his reddened cheeks by looking down at what his hands were doing. sliding off his old, tattered gloves had never been so interesting.

  
A voice echoed in the destroyed building. “So, who's going to start?”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally the last chapter, and with it the original illustrations that Omaano had drawn for this reverse bigbang and that were at the beginning of everything!
> 
> Please enjoy!

"I already know how _my_ story goes, but not yours… so tell me." Gabriel said, his ears standing straight on top of his head.

He combed through his short hair to quench the sudden desireto feel and pool someone else's hair.

  
"You're taking the easy way out here, Gabriel." Jack sighed before leaning back in his arms.

The wounds were already closing themselves, leaving behind only the gashes in the leather of the jacket as a reminder of their battle. Grunting, Jack let his gaze be captivated by the moon. "I was never a good storyteller. Just one thing though, I need to know it before going on. The bomb..."

  
There was no need for Jack to complete his sentence, Gabriel knew exactly what he meant to ask. "Not me. An inside job definitely, but not me. I'm still searching for the culprit."

  
The forlorn expression on Jack's face in that moment was not one that suited him, and even after so many years Gabriel felt the impulse to erase it no matter what it would take. Find the perpetrator and serve them on a silver plate for Jack to destroy, that too seemed with each passing second the most plausible solution.

  
"I see," but then there was a smile pulling on Jack's lips, the big scar crossing them diagonally showing off more pointy teeth "I'm glad it wasn't you."

  
It was like Gabriel's heart had jumpstarted again. He wasn't aware he had been holding his breath, but he had. So Jack had doubted of him. To be honest he too would have doubted of himself at the time. Gabriel hadn't been on good terms with Jack at the time of The Explosion and then he had reappeared under a new alias with a mercenary inclination. There was no need to resent Jack for that mistrust yet it still left a sour taste in his mouth. Jack's smile though mollified him. It wasn't a _pretty_ smile, far from it, with its awkwardness and chainsaw-like appearance, but there was a gentleness to it of a man who had finally received some good news after years of miserable living.

  
To avoid getting too close to Jack and eventually hugging him, Gabriel started unfastening his boots to get rid of them. Better focus on other things while the other man told his tale.

  
"So... I think it started the day the Geneva base was destroyed. At least, I realized it that day." there was a small pause there for Jack to recollect his thoughts. "It's odd, I always thought I was destined to do great things with my life-"

  
Gabriel snorted. As if it wasn't The Strike Commander speaking about himself in that moment.

  
"Shut up and let me finish, asshole." Jack complained in that warm way that only close friends did. It made something in Gabriel's stomach flutter. Maybe he really needed to get some food in it. Later. Tomorrow.

  
"Like… I could do it, on my own. I thought I was finally there. But then Geneva happened." Jack paused again, his breath more elaborated; he was probably reminiscing about all the death and destruction, and Gabriel had lost some good people that day as well. Gabriel had finally taken off his boots and was stretching his toes, pleased to finally let them free. Gabriel moved a hand to smooth his beard down and hid a grimace.

  
"There were flames and everything was collapsing and I thought… that would be my tomb. Burned alive. What an unsatisfactory death for the big boss. I didn't want to go out like that, without facing the enemy. Just as collateral damage. Then..." shifting, Jack leaned forwards, elbows on his knees to rub circles in his temples, fingers pressed against his scales. Gabriel wondered how they would feel to the touch. "Then I heard this… thing speak, telling me to not have fear. I thought I had seriously gone mad and was hallucinating an angel… turns out it was a dragon. An _ice_ dragon speaking from within me, telling me not to be afraid and that I would make it out alive." Clenching a fist in front of his face and focusing on it, Jack kept talking. "This thing inside me told me how to cool down things and freeze them enough to escape. And here I am, five years later, discovering that both of my friends are alive and I'm not the only..."

  
Gabriel could see the cold air physically manifesting around Jack's fist, then evaporating like warm breath in winter.

"Freak? No Jack, you are not alone."

  
Jack seemed full of sorrow in that moment, his brows furrowing accentuated by the scales that shone like opals under the moon. "That's not what I meant."

He hugged his knees and even if he was over 50 years old, he didn't look a day different from that country boy from Indiana that Gabriel had met so many years ago. There was a frailty hiding behind that soldier facade that was precious, making Gabriel want to destroy and protect it at the same time.

  
"Don't beat yourself up about it or you're going to be the only hurt one." it was useless for Gabriel to smoke cigarettes nowadays, his body rejecting the poison, but god he wished he could smoke one right in that moment. To simulate the effect, he let his index finger smoke up in a thin trail of nanoparticles. "That's what you are now, and nothing is ever going to change it. Just accept it."

  
Jack was looking transfixed at the fake smoke emitted by Gabriel's finger. It had a relaxing effect on him too it seemed, and Gabriel found himself wondering how long ago the last cigarette had been for Jack.

  
" I've told you my story. What about yours instead?”

  
"Right," Gabriel prolonged the r, rolling it around on his tongue, reticent to talk. That would mean admitting to Jack that he had kept secrets from him for a long while. Something he wasn't looking forward to. Then again what would Jack do, kill him?!  
  
  
"You remember O'Deorain?"

  
Jack looked at him, intrigued in that way that people were when they understood that a shit storm was brewing at the horizon. "Moira? The geneticist? Sure I do."

  
"Good. Good." Gabriel caressed his beard to hide his nervousness, but his ears would give him away easily with how low they were drooping. He laid down on the pallet to avoid looking at Jack, but he could feel the man's eyes trained on him to understand which direction the story was taking. "Well you see, you remember I kept visiting her labs before Geneva happened?"

  
"Yeah, I thought she wasn't your type. And yet..." Jack's voice had taken a sad tone but it was Gabriel who got a whiplash from how fast he turned his head in Jack's direction.

  
"She's _not_ my type!" almost screaming, Gabriel dragged a hand down his face. "Seriously Jack. How does your brain even work?! I thought you knew what my type is." his voice was getting lower with every words and honestly he was glad he didn't have actual blood in his veins, otherwise in that moment Gabriel would be blushing. To think that after all that time... And all those encounters...

  
"Maybe I've forgotten after all this time." his slightly clawed nails seemed very interesting since how much focused on them Jack was in that moment. "That's not the point though. What about Moira?"

  
On one hand Gabriel was glad that Jack was the one changing the subject, returning to the previous topic that Gabriel was trying to avoid. On the other, well.

"She discovered that my blood had started acting oddly. Something akin to a sickness, a cancer spreading through my body," and there Gabriel could feel daggers on his body courtesy of Jack's ice blue eyes, "something that technically wasn't supposed to be there even though all the shit that the SEP had injected. My values were all unbalanced and yet I was still alive."

  
He turned to look at Jack once again. "Now I understand why we were the only ones who survived SEP." After 2 heartbeats Gabriel kept talking. "We're alike, Jack."

  
"So you think those things were inside us all along?" Jack's voice had taken an harsh turn. "Don't be silly, what would that make of us? Mutants?! _Monsters_?!" At Gabriel's silence, he scoffed, "you're _delusional_ Gabriel."

"I'm dead, Jack." and never in his life and other states of existence had Gabriel felt his words to be so sharp and straight to the point.

  
It was Jack's turn to get a whiplash, his eyes fixed on Gabriel as if he were seeing the man for the first time, scanning every inch of torn and ashen skin, every red eye and all his pointy teeth.

  
Not alive, nor human. It was hard to acknowledge the truth for what it was and accept it even with visual proof.

  
I died the day of The Explosion. Stayed as smoke for some time. O'Deorain had been injecting stuff into me to try and fight whatever was going on. The effects were completely unexpected, I must say." to show his point, Gabriel dissolved his right hand, slowly solidifying it a few seconds later. "I didn't think much in that condition but I knew I had to find that damn doctor. Dying was almost worth the scare I gave her when I appeared in front of her in all my… smokiness." there was a manic glint in Gabriel's 4 eyes and a low grumble coming out from the gashes on his cheeks. That was definitely a satisfied laugh.

"Been working for Talon since then… I had nothing better to do."

  
"Gabriel... That's _dumb_ even for you..." Jack chuckled, that familiar sound that made Gabriel's heart squeeze with fond memories. Yeah, probably Jack wasn't supposed to feel that way about an enemy either, but were they _really_ enemies? When they were alone against the world and against the unknown variant they were to themselves, was it really worth it to fight each other?

"You could have done so much better. Like… turning to smoke to slip into a cinema theater to watch movies for free."

  
“You think I've never done it?! I've watched Some like it bot 7 times in the first 3 days!"

At that point they were both laughing on the floor like children, carefree and lighthearted unlike the middle-aged war heroes and commanders they were supposed to be.

  
The moon was shining on them from the hole in the roof, gently pooling in the wrinkles of Jack's smile. Gabriel hadn't seen that expression in too long. It was beautiful.

  
"You're still the same damn sap," yet there was no disapproval in Jack's gaze, but something more akin to affection or at least Gabriel hoped it was. Even the scales on his forehead looked distended somehow, as confirmation of Jack's relaxed state.

  
Gabriel found himself smiling back at him while they looked into each other’s eyes. The regular set at least. "You have no idea."

  
"Care to explain again what you're type is?"

  
A smirk bloomed on Gabriel's face as he extended his arm in Jack's direction, offering him his hand "come and find out, Jackie."

Jack took his hand.

* * *

Gabriel could feel the dawn touching him lightly on the neck, on the head where Jack wasn't covering him. He was tired in that way that made his muscles hurt and sing at the same time with the satisfaction of exertion and making every bruise sting; rolling around in Jack's arms, he could see that the other was already awake and had probably been watching the back of his head for a while.

  
It made his heart melt a bit, the thought of Jack waiting patiently for him to awaken, watching the short hair on his nape curling in the tiniest of curls or his ears twitch back and forth to the rhythm of his dreams.

  
“Morning,” he slurred, and even if they were laying on the barest pallet ever, purple covers pooled at their feet, it felt like they were cuddling on a cloud.

  
“Hey,” Jack smiled at him, his lips curving gently in the same fashion as his eyes, the wrinkles emphasizing the tenderness of it all.

  
Without any more words between them, they moved toward each other, lips brushing uncaring of the fangs. It was something that had arrived too late in their lives, with too much regret behind it.

  
As if it sensing the mood, and intent to ruin it further, Jack's stomach grumbled; he looked embarrassed by it, stuttering out a “sorry!” before covering his face with both hands.

  
Gabriel laughed wholeheartedly at that, turning to look up at the blue sky peeking from the hole above them with a smile and stretching. That was a problem. Soon they would have to separate again, and this time he wasn't feeling like it.

  
“So what happens now?” he voiced his doubts.

  
Removing the hands from his face, Jack looked at him, unsure. It could almost be said that there were already sadness and resignation waging war on his features. “I need to get something to eat.”

  
“Mmm same,” it was nice to lay naked like that, next to Jack. Gabriel didn't want it to end. “Not the same thing as you though, undead necessities and all.”

  
“Oh, right,” Jack murmured and then sighed, rising up to sit. “I guess I'll have to go back to my business, you know, the whole save this shitty world shtick, don't let Overwatch get in trouble again,” and then Jack pointedly looked at Gabriel, “meet some old friends...”

  
“That sounds like a good plan,” Gabriel whispered back, all three of his eyes fixed on the ceiling or what was left of it.

  
There was a small smile on Jack's face before he walked up to what was left of his clothes and put them on to make himself decent again.

  
Before Jack could walk out of the door and once again out of his life, hopefully not for long, Gabriel took a deep breath of his cold smell and spoke up, “be careful not to cross Talon again. O'Deorain and Ogundimu both want you, Jackie.”

  
“I hope they're not the only ones,” he said with still some lust in his raspy voice, smirking like a teenager after punning his crush. Gabriel couldn't see his face but he knew that the smirk was there. Jack turned to Gabriel one last time, a pained smile on his face. “Thank you, Gabe.” Then he exited the mezzanine.

  
It was time for Gabriel to turn the lie Olivia had reported for him into truth, and hit the nearby town for some souls to eat.

* * *

It was unusual for Reaper to be sent on the field on somebody else's mission mid-action, especially if it was taking place far away -what with the necessary and collateral being painstakingly calculated beforehand, and the fact that even if Talon owned state of the art technology, it still took time to send over people and weapons.

  
Yet it seemed that this time Reaper was necessary, given the havoc that had been unleashed upon the operative Talon base between the newly rebuilt Overwatch and external chaos agents.

  
Gabriel feared that that meant Soldier: 76 was on location. He hadn't seen Jack in 4 months, since that night that they had spent together under a fallen ceiling embracing each other, but he wasn't looking forward to see him again under these circumstances. Sure, he had missed Jackie, but Gabriel was mostly worried that the other man could fall into O'Deorain's clutches, as the woman was traveling on the same helicarrier as him. He had seen the way the geneticist had been looking at his analysis, preparing some new filters in glass capsules in that laboratory of hers… not to mention Ogundimu and his thirst for power. Lord knew what that man would do if he could harness more monster spirits under his command. Gabriel was safe since he was cooperating willingly, he still maintained his freedom and autonomy, but is someone like Jack or one of the Shimada were to defy him, he was sure that O'Deorain would be more than happy to extract their essence and gift it to the leader, as long as it was a given that she could experiment.

  
Next to him, Sombra tried to laugh off the tension with some jokes, but it was useless, getting scolded by Moira, to remind her she was present only to retrieve the data box from the base, not to be a clown. Every time Moira turned her back on her, Sombra stuck her tongue out at the geneticist.

  
When the helicarrier touched ground, Gabriel dematerialized himself outside, anxious to see the situation with his own eyes.

  
The base was supposed to be hidden in an evergreen forest, away from civilization but not too deep in the centenary wildwoods. As things were, though, everything was on fire.

  
The building that was supposed to be the base had already collapsed, and the wood around it had burnt down, leaving a black open space surrounded by a ring of flames, a contrast with the snow that covered everything else in the forest.

  
As Gabriel had feared, Jack was there.

  
Looking like a Hollywood star of old times, the ones who walked away from an explosion, Jack was in the heart of the action, blasting projectiles from his rifle against Talon minions, but not actively working with the Overwatch squad.

The fight was not one-sided, but it did look like Overwatch -and Jack, though working on his own side- had the upper hand.

  
Even from afar, Gabriel could catch a whiff of Jack's delicious smell of fresh snow, so different from the regular snow's one. It spoke of sweetness on his tongue, and of home, as if the man was in his natural habitat.

  
He was sure that Jack too had recognized his presence on the battlefield, the monsters within sensing one another, but wasn't interrupting the action just to greet him. Gabriel had barely managed to notice his head turn in his direction as if it were a natural movement. It was the best choice. Moira wasn't too far and the risk of being accused of fraternizing with enemy, even if it was real, was too high at the moment.

  
“Reaper,” Moira spoke from behind him, “I want Morrison alive.”

  
“Understood,” he answered, before rushing into the fray, putting distance between the geneticist and himself. Oddly enough, he wanted the same thing too.

  
Gabriel got greeted by a punch straight in the neck. If he were a regular, living man, he would no longer be any of those things, but thankfully Gabriel was an undead, genetically modified monster carrier, so he only flew through the air, landing on a pile of debris.

  
Upon him stood Winston, gaze fierce and ready to attack again.

“Hello monkey,” Gabriel arrogantly acknowledged him before disappearing away from the fury of the primate.

  
It took him less than thirty seconds to solidify again, this time on the other side of the field, just behind an explosion that made his coat fly around him like a villain. The irony.

  
Jack was there, and he looked glorious in his natural element, destruction surrounding him; for a brief moment Gabriel wondered when he had become so weak for that man, coming to the conclusion that he had actually always been, before the butt of Jack's pulse rifle hit him the mask.

  
“Hello to you too, Jackie,” Gabriel chuckled, feeling his black blood boil with the desire to devastate all around him and the man in front of him too.

  
Another mask, almost identical to the previous, was covering Jack's face but Gabriel could still hear the hysteria in his voice, “Finally! Welcome Gabe!”

  
The briefing had not said who had started the attack, if Overwatch or Soldier: 76, but Gabriel was sure that most if not all of the obliteration that had happened on site was the work of the latter.

  
He jumped back and away from Jack's reach and cracked his knuckles. “Let's get down to business!”

  
“I was waiting for this!” was all Jack said before throwing away his rifle and hurling himself at Gabriel.

  
It was as if they were back to that night four months prior, where each punch was a caress for their complicated courting ritual, ducking and kicking just another step in their dance, crumbling building and gunfire the rhythm to which they couldn't disentangle their bodies from.

  
They were the only ones alive in a world of ice and fire.

  
With a well-placed blow from under the chin, Gabriel managed to make the mask skid off from Jack's face. Ice blue eyes looked at him from under scales more pronounced than the last time, looking almost confused.

  
Not a second after, Gabriel was hit in the stomach by a fist brought forward by a cold gust that made him fly on his back. In the months they had spent apart Jack must have learned some new gimmicks, his blood reacting to meeting another carrier for the first time since its awakening. It only made Gabriel grin like a fool in love. To be able to feel all that power on his body, and to fight it back...

  
Jumping up and removing his gloves just to throw them down on the ground, Gabriel launched himself in a full-out fist fight with Jack, so close that he could see the flames reflecting on the opalescent surface of his scales. Still, Jack tried to hit him with his frozen wind, pushing Gabriel toward the collapsing building no matter how hard he braced himself against the blows.

  
It wasn't another one of Gabriel attacks that stopped Jack though. No, it was a scream of pain that belonged to neither of them. The voice, Gabriel recalled it from his Overwatch days and then some time later, fighting against its owner in an art museum. Tracer.

  
They both turned toward her. The woman stood not too far from them, frozen mid-action as a bluish tint surrounded her but concentrated mostly around her chest area, leaving her with a grimace of ache frozen on the face.

  
Jack dashed to her, trying to assess the damage of someone who had been his dear subordinate once upon a time; the chronic accelerator that kept her anchored in time was malfunctioning, ice encrusting its edges. Even Gabriel could see that.

  
“Oh dear god Lena I'm sorry!” Jack said, hesitant to touch her and inflict more damage, but she wasn't able to answer, frozen in time and in pain.

  
“Sombra,” Gabriel whispered in his earpiece, “please come.”

  
“You asking pretty please, what's up Reaper?” she was always way too chipper.

“Come here now,” he growled back, hoping that Olivia would heed his command for once.

  
Less than a minute later and the hacker was there, facing the spectacle of a maskless Soldier: 76 who tried to warm up a static Tracer, fretting around her and talking to her in a kind tone with sorrowful words while Reaper looked at the scene trying to calm down the other man.

  
“Well this sure is something, _viejo,_ ” Olivia whispered, struck by being so close to so many famous previously Overwatch agents. “What happened?”

  
“I think it's my fault,” finally Soldier: 76 acknowledged her arrival, turning to her.

  
Olivia seemed surprised to see him looking far more changed in the past five years than it should have been possible from the image he had as Strike Commander on the posters around the streets, yet she was used to being around Gabriel and his weirdness so she proceeded to check Tracer without batting an eye.

  
Getting some cables from her wrist, she connected them to a side port of the accelerator and without looking at the two men she murmured business-like, “leave me alone to work if you're going to be of no help.”

  
Knocking his foot against Jack's ankle, Gabriel signaled him to follow away from where Sombra was doing her best to help Tracer get unstuck.

  
“What have I done Gabriel?” Jack was still wide eyed in his apprehension for the woman who had been the closest thing that he ever had as a child.

  
Out of character for him, Gabriel comforted Jack tacking his hands in his own, unsure of the right words to use. “You didn't do it on purpose,” and then again, with more conviction, “Sombra is here to help Tracer. She will do it.”

  
Jack though didn't seem to be listening to his words. “It's my fault. I've done this. I've hurt Lena.” He didn't hold Gabriel's hands back, letting his own slide out to let them creep on his face and touch it, frantic. His fingers stopped on his scales like they were feeling them for the first time. “I'm a monster Gabriel! I've hurt people. I always have!”

  
There was guilt in Jack's eyes that Gabriel couldn't stand, nor the deprecation in his voice. It was like Rome all over again, and he didn't want to see Jack once again reduced to a wrecked jumble of nerves and tears for something that wasn't as much his fault as he thought. Gabriel pushed back his mask to get a better look at Jack and force the man attention on him.

  
Too late though, as the short claws of Jack's fingers had ripped through his gloves and were trying to tear the scales off to the chant of “I'mamonster.”  
  
  
Taking hold of Jack's wrists, Gabriel pushed them away to go stand right in his face, chest to chest and nose to nose.

  
“Listen to me Jack.”

  
Yet Jack kept repeating his mantra with a terror in his eyes. It squeezed Gabriel's heart.

  
“Jack you're not a monster. You're just _different_.”

It did not seem to work.

  
“Jack. Jack. Jack.”

  
Nothing seemed to get through to the other man. Gabriel thought he was out of options to reach Jack; discouraged, he let himself whine like dog.

  
That seemed to do the magic. Jack's demon resonated with Gabriel's one, responding to him and his lament. With surprise, Gabriel realized that Jack was nuzzling him in the spot where jaw connected to neck, emitting a low rumble. “Jack...”

  
“I'm sorry Gabe-” but Jack couldn't finish his sentence as Gabriel had plastered his mouth on Jack’s own, too happy to have Jack out of his sudden state of shock.  
  
  
  


  
“No it's ok it's ok,” Gabriel whispered against his lips, smiling.

  
“But I'm a mo-”

  
Putting a thumb against Jack's lips, Gabriel interrupted him. “You're not. You're different and special. There's something inside you that's special and it is a part of you. You're just like me.”

  
Jack didn't look convinced by Gabriel's words, but nipped at the offered finger with his sharp teeth, making him smirk.

  
“One day you'll accept _him_ and everything will be better.”

  
“Whatever you say, Gabe.”

  
“Good. Then show me.” caressing Jack's tongue with his thumb, Gabriel whispered in his ear.

  
Without answering to his words, Jack turned his head in a questioning manner. Gabriel could feel those blue eyes trained on him.

“Show me what you can do, Jack,” he prompted again.

  
A deep sigh escaped Jack's lips before he closed his eyes and nodded. It felt like the earth was trembling under their feet.

  
Jack moved his face toward Gabriel's again, lips and teeth pressing against each other at the same time as Jack's ears stretched in a pointy shape, and small horns sprouted from his forehead just to become longer each passing second.

  
Gabriel hugged him, proud of him for finally letting go of his barriers, kissing him so deeply they had their tongues down each other’s throats. He could feel Jack playfully nip at his bottom lip and his own hand started traveling downward to grab at that round ass when a throat clearing stopped him.

  
They both turned toward its source.

  
Sombra was there, one arm passing under Tracer's armpit to help her standing, looking at them with mock disapproval. “I seriously can't believe you two...”

  
“Sir...” Tracer called out at Jack, a bit worse for wear but still on her feet.

  
As if burned, Jack let go of Gabriel and run to Tracer.

  
“Lena... I'm terribly sorry! I... I don't know how to use this power yet,” Jack found himself explaining, ignoring the woman's gaze focused on the odd features of his face but at the same time drinking in every other part of him like she thought he had been dead.

  
There were tears in Lena's eyes. “I'm happy to see you're alive, sir.”

Leaving Sombra's side, she hugged Jack, her smaller frame plastered against his broad chest. Jack caressed her hair, rediscovering how small she still felt next to him and how much he had just risked.

Gabriel could read it in the tension of Jack's shoulders, how unsure of the control he exercised on his new powers and how much he still feared to hurt her.

  
“I'm happy too. Don't call me sir, I'm not anymore. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.” and then nobody could tell if Jack was still speaking of what had happened moments before or of his untimely death.  
  
Lena looked up at him. “I've been worse... Jack.”

  
A veiled smile painted itself on Jack's face before he ruffled Lena's hair.

On the side, Gabriel and Olivia leaned against each other, the battle forgotten in the background, on the other side of the demolished building.

  
“This is gonna be a problem. A big one.” Olivia commented, still looking out for the other woman in case she needed assistance. Gabriel grunted in agreement. They needed a solution.

He knew that if what happened with Tracer just now occurred again, it would not be so easy to bring Jack out of his shock a second time, the damn boy scout. Jack would never forgive himself. The fact that Tracer too was a bit special had saved her from dying under his cold gust blows.

What Jack needed now was the possibility to learn how to better use and control his new powers. Away from people who could be in danger from him and who could be dangerous to him. Gabriel knew that Moira was still around somewhere, just waiting to place Jack on her examining table.

They needed to get away as soon as possible. Suddenly, defecting Talon didn't seem like such a bad idea to Gabriel.

Suddenly, the idea of leaving everything behind, being a tool, forced to do someone else’s bidding with little control or care, sounded better -since there was someone else he could have by his side… someone he’d thought was dead, someone who was like him, who needed him, who Gabriel himself needed just as much.

It was not a hard choice to make, and the thought left him reeling with adrenaline and anticipation.

“Jack,” he called from the sideline, lips stretched into a wide smirk, “what do you think about living in the forest for like, the next ten years?”

“With you?”

  
Gabriel smirked at the question, and that was enough of an answer for Jack.

“Works for me.”

  
They both had not much to lose, if the few actual friends that they had now knew how to find them.

Gabriel felt… lighter. Like something heavy had been pushed off his chest and he could breathe freely for the first time in forever.

It did not take him much to understand that he was feeling hopeful for real, this time.

Still, there was something else he needed to check first.

  
“Hey Olivia,” Gabriel inclined his head in her direction, “what would happen if I disappeared?”

  
“That would be an amazing trick, _viejo_ " she smirked as a projection popped up immediately from her arm. The shade of a recycle bin made her smile look almost predatory.

Well then. He had everything checked up just fine, it seemed.

* * *

  
It took practice and patience for Jack to reach perfect control, and even more work for him to fully accept who he was.

Some days he was particularly stubborn just for the sake of it, calling blue what Gabriel had said was red.

Those days usually ended with some unused, abandoned area of the forest leveled to the ground, but they couldn't complain that much as it gave them the chance to get out some steam, get rid of the extra energy that they didn't manage during sex.

But slowly he was getting there.

Jack wasn't a monster even if he had a demon inside him. He was an ice dragon and was Gabriel's mate. That was everything that mattered beside the freedom to be themselves, without masters or with the entire society to save. Without judgment. Impartial actors on the set of a world that was rapidly changing.

Just let others save the day, fight the good fight, work to make a better world -Gabriel had had enough of that. He was old, even if he didn’t look like that. He had died to do what he was expected to do, and that was… enough. He’d given enough of his years to some other people on one side or the other.

And he knew that Jack felt the same -he might not have changed alliances as Gabriel had, but he’d fought for just as long, with himself and with others.

It was time to rest.

They were not bad, nor good. And that was perfect, in Gabriel's opinion.

And they were together.

That was even better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Technically this story ends here, but.  
> There was a sex scene that I didn't manage to write in 'cause RL always happens too much and then end lines are too soon. So, if you want toread it, please let me know.
> 
> A gigantic thank you to all the people who had made this project possible (from the admins to my lovely artist and betas/supporters, not forgetting all the other participants) and an even bigger one to all people who has read this story.  
> Thank you!

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos and comments make authors (and artists) happy, so you know what to do ;)
> 
> Stay tooned for the next update tomorrow


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